Gigabit Ethernet (GBE) and Fibre Channel (FC) dominate the enterprise data communications market today. Gigabit Ethernet is a dominant player in high-speed Local Area Network (LAN) backbones and server connectivity. Fibre Channel is the dominant protocol today for connecting Storage Area Networks (SAN). There are other protocols such as FICON that have the same physical layer interface as Fibre Channel and can be transported using the methods described here. Gigabit Ethernet and Fibre Channel protocols enable transmission of high-speed signals across geographically disperse computers and storage systems.
Traditionally, file servers with large external disks or disk farms using the SCSI standard have been used to support applications requiring large amounts of data storage. As applications increased, the storage system capacities and bandwidth (data transfer speed) requirements increased. The SCSI standard limitations made scaling difficult. The servers could only access data on devices directly attached to them. Failure of the server or SCSI hardware could cause an access failure. Also, SCSI supports only a finite number of devices and is therefore not scalable. The parallel structure of SCSI results in distance limitations that require equipment to be co-located.
Storage Area Networks (SAN) were implemented to overcome the limitations of the SCSI architecture. The SAN is a network between the servers and the storage devices. A SAN allows multiple servers to access any storage device. This increases fault tolerance and overcomes the distance limitation since the server and storage do not need to be co-located. The dominant networking technology for implementing SAN is Fibre Channel.
Fibre Channel technology [ANSI X3T11] was designed to enable high-speed data transfer between computer systems and storage devices. It supports common transport protocols including Internet Protocol and SCSI. It supports high-speed data transfer at standard rates of 1 Gbps, 2 Gbps, 4 Gbps, and 10 Gbps. It also supports communications across extended distances enabling corporations to have off-site storage thus enabling applications like disaster recovery and business continuity.
The Ethernet standard defined by IEEE 802.3 has been the dominant networking protocol since its inception in the early 1970's. Ethernet has the highest number of installed ports and provides the greatest cost performance of all the networking protocols. Fast Ethernet boosted the transmission speed of Ethernet from 10 Mbps to 100 Mbps. Gigabit Ethernet builds on top of Fast Ethernet and increases the speed to 1 Gbps.
The Gigabit Ethernet protocol, which was standardized in June 1998, combines the networking features of Ethernet and the physical interface of Fibre Channel. IEEE 802.3 Ethernet and ANSI X3T11 Fibre Channel were merged to accelerate the Ethernet physical interface from 100 Mbps to 1 Gbps. It allows higher speed communications while leveraging the knowledge base of Ethernet for manageability and maintainability. Leveraging the two technologies allows the standard to take advantage of the existing high speed Fibre Channel physical interface while maintaining compatibility with IEEE 802.3 Ethernet.
Gigabit Ethernet itself can also be used to connect SAN. Recent advancements in SCSI have resulted in the iSCSI standard. This standard connects SAN via Gigabit Ethernet protocol.
Gigabit Ethernet adopted the 8B/10B-encoding scheme from Fibre Channel FC-1 layer. The 1 Gbps Ethernet Data or the 800 Mbps Fibre Channel data are 8b/10b encoded to generate output data rates of 1.25 Gbps and 1.0625 Gbps respectively. FC-1 defines the transmission protocol, serial encoding/decoding, special characters, and error control. Encoding the data has several advantages. It maintains DC balance, enhances bit-level clock recovery, enables error correction, and allows separation of data and control characters.
Gigabit Ethernet and Fibre Channel use disparity in the FC-1 layer to maintain DC balance. Depending on the DC balance, positive or negative disparity is chosen when converting from 8b to 10b. The disparity is adjusted to maintain the DC balance at zero (equal number of ones and zeroes in the signal). Positive or negative disparity is chosen to make the DC balance more positive or more negative depending on the error. Alternate sets of control characters are transmitted depending on disparity chosen. Gigabit Ethernet may use either positive or negative running disparity at the beginning of transmission. The Fibre Channel specification fixes the beginning running disparity as negative.
From a transport perspective, the data may be sent in the 8b format or 10b format. However, since Ethernet can choose either positive or negative beginning disparity, if the data is sent in the 8b mode, it is no longer transparent. If user defined control characters are inserted that do not have an alternate for disparity, then transparency may be lost. Therefore it is optimal to send Ethernet data in the 10b mode. Since the Fibre Channel specification defines the beginning running disparity as negative always, Fibre Channel may be sent in either 8b or 10b mode. Sending in the 8b mode reduces the amount of data sent and has advantages in terms of reducing credit-buffering requirements in flow control implementations.
An aggregation function is required to multiplex multiple Gigabit Ethernet data streams and Fibre Channel data streams over one high-speed optical link. The speed of data transmission over optical networks has increased drastically in recent years. Consequently, as new high-speed equipment is connected into optical networks, it is often desirable to multiplex lower speed equipment into the higher speed network for transport in order to take advantage of the transport capacity at the higher speed.
Multiplexing slower data streams gives rise to certain problems. For instance, the input and output clocks may be +/−100 ppm apart and still satisfy the Ethernet standard. In order to multiplex data streams from a slower GBE clock to a faster GBE clock, characters have to be added that do not affect the overall data transmission. Going from a faster to a slower clock requires characters to be removed from the data stream without affecting the data transmission. Transport service customers using the network often find changes to the frames unacceptable, preferring a “seamless” or “transparent” transport of packets. In the art, “seamless” transport is known as “transparency”. So, a method of matching the clocks is required that maintains transparency.
High-speed optical networks must reproduce each packet exactly in order to maintain transparency. Any operations that alter the packets can result in loss of data. Thus, transparency for Ethernet and Fibre Channel signals is the ability to transport packets across the network without errors and with the same disparity.
Input data must be mapped to a common clock domain for aggregation. The input data from the client arrives at the transport system client interface having different clock domains. The clock rates may be +/−100 ppm apart per the Ethernet specification. This data must be mapped to a single clock domain at the FEC interface prior to transport. The Ingress circuitry is designed to map these client data streams to the same clock domain without affecting transparency. Therefore, a stuffing method is required that does not affect disparity.
Idle characters may be inserted or removed from the data stream in order to maintain the same disparity and transparency. The Gigabit Ethernet data stream consists of packets of data separated by Idle characters. There are two types of Idle characters: Idle 1 characters toggle the disparity whereas Idle 2 characters maintain the same disparity. The method of insertion and removal of Idle 2 characters is used to maintain the same disparity. In Fibre Channel, a single ordered set is used for the Idle character in ANSI X3T11.
An output data rate in the FEC clock domain is maintained such that it is much higher then the aggregate data rate of the input data streams. This allows stuffing opportunities for Idle characters and proprietary data across the link. This enables mapping of data streams with +/−100 ppm variation to the same clock domain.
Transported data recovered at the far end of the network must be mapped to the client clock domain. A fixed oscillator is selected for the clock output to the client to maintain low jitter and output clock characteristics that are within the physical layer specifications. This fixed data rate may be +/−100 ppm from the center frequency (1.25 Gbps for Ethernet, 1.0625 Gbps for FC, and 2.125 Gbps for 2FC). Therefore, there may be a mismatch between the data arriving from the Ingress path across the network to the Egress clock domain. As before, Idle 2 characters may be added or removed to match the input data rate to the fixed oscillator that generates the output signal to the client.
In the past, transparency has been difficult to achieve because the data stream timing variations required large amounts of buffering. There are physical limits to the size of the buffers when used in data path devices such as field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). When data is passing through FPGAs at high data rates (greater than 155 megabits per second), often data tends to overflow the buffers. This method of addition and removal of Idle 2 characters from the data stream in order to align the input and output clocks maintains 10b transparency without overflowing the buffers.
In the prior art, aggregation of packet-based data streams is achieved by encapsulating in SONET, GFP, or other framing protocol. The Ethernet data is often decoded to 8b and then encapsulated prior to transport, which may affect transparency. This method of sending Ethernet and Fibre Channel in its native format reduces costs since this can be done cost effectively in an FPGA and alleviates the need for more expensive ASIC.
Several prior art inventions have attempted to maintain transparency with varying success.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,151,334 to Kim, et al., entitled SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR SENDING MULTIPLE DATA SIGNALS OVER A SERIAL LINK, discloses a method and system for sending multiple data signals over a serial link that uses an embedding unit to encode data streams and then merge the encoded data into a serial stream that is output across a serial line to a removing unit. The removing unit receives the serial steam of data, decodes the serial stream and separates the decoded serial stream into separate streams and reconstructing the input streams. The encoding and transmission are transparent, but are not packet-based streams like Ethernet. The invention of Kim only moves data in time with respect to a radio synchronization signal, but does not address problems with packet based data transparency.
United States Patent Publication No. 2002/0080809 to Nicholson, et al., entitled SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR MULTIPLEXING SYNCHRONOUS DIGITAL DATA STREAMS, discloses a method and system for multiplexing synchronous parallel digital data streams with different clock frequencies into a single data stream while preserving each data stream's timing integrity. Digital data inputs and separate corresponding clock inputs are coupled to corresponding first-in-first-out (FIFOs) buffering. Additionally, clock inputs are coupled to a clock multiplexer (MUX). Nicholson does not address problems arising from packet based data streams that are not synchronous.
United States Patent Publication No. 2002/0075903 to Hind, entitled MULTIPLEXING SONET/SDH DATA STREAMS USING INDEPENDENT ENCODING SCHEMES, discloses a system and method for transparently multiplexing/demultiplexing synchronous data streams without pointer processing or protocol conversion. The system uses encoding schemes to enable recovery of the respective data streams from the aggregate data stream. However, in Hind the synchronous data streams must all have the same bit rate. Hind does not address or solve the problems arising from multiple packet based data streams that have different clock domains.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,396,853 to Humphrey et al., entitled PROVIDING DATA SERVICES TO TELECOMMUNICATIONS USER TERMINALS, discloses a method of multiplexing one or more plesiochronous packet data channels together with lower priority asynchronous traffic into a single composite data stream. The plesiochronous data packets each comprise a number of bytes together with a header element containing channel identification information and a packet length indicator. In Humphrey, et al., the frames are not transparent and, moreover, Humphrey does not address or solve the problems of transparent transportation of packet based data streams that have different clock domains.
Therefore, a need exists for a system to aggregate packet based data streams on to one high-speed optical path in order to achieve transparency and preserve user data wherein the data is produced identically across the network. It is, therefore, desirable to provide a method and apparatus that permits a plurality of low-speed data streams to be multiplexed onto a high-speed data channel.